David Gaffney's compact, surreal tales are filled with poignancy and wit. Each story goes off like a tiny depth charge in the mind, leaving you with the trace memory of some new urban myth - comic, absurd and disturbingly true.
David Gaffney lives in Manchester. He is the author of several books including Sawn-Off Tales (2006), Aromabingo (2007), Never Never (2008), The Half-Life of Songs (2010) and More Sawn-Off Tales (2013). He has written articles for the Guardian, Sunday Times, Financial Times and Prospect, and his new novel, All The Places I've Ever Lived, is due out in spring 2017. See www.davidgaffney.org.
Title: Sawn-Off Tales (Salt Modern Fiction)
Author: Gaffney, David
ISBN: 9781844712922
Binding:
Publisher: Salt Publishing
Publication Date: 2006-09-01
Number of Pages: 128
Weight: 0.0227 kg
Funny, pointed, and sometimes even disturbing, Gaffney's stories deserve to be read.
-- Jim Burns * Ambit *
This book will knock you out. Packed with emotion, annoyance, and social science fiction, it's a testament to imagination and the skill of illustrating it.
-- Harlan Levey * Modart Magazine *
David Gaffney is an evolution, a moment in time to be lavished with a literary eye, to be goggled with a mind broad and open enough to look and look anew. Each snippet disturbingly captures everyday life in superbly unique fashion. What a stunning collection.
-- Eugen M. Bacon * TCM *
Gaffney has produced the kind of book that makes you wish you spent more time locked in your imagination and less time dismissing irreverent thoughts.
-- Lianne Steinberg * The Big Issue *
Almost all the 58 stories in David Gaffney's collection are shorter than this review. Reality becomes dislocated and strange; words and phrases acquire a compelling importance . . . One hundred and fifty words by Gaffney are more worthwhile than novels by a good many others.
-- Nicholas Clee * The Guardian *
Exceptional and well deserving of the hardcover slapped around them...witty, clever and poignant Gaffney's micro fictions work as funny routines, moving insights and illuminating character sketches, often all at the same time.
-- Nicholas Royle * Time Out *
Sawn-Off Tales is an original collection, one that bravely attempts to present modern life in the way that we ourselves experience it - as a series small, occasionally meaningless snapshots, which build to create a rich complexity.
-- Lucy Wood * Transition Tradition *
